Task 1

1. Apply rhetorical concepts to achieve writing goals within a given discourse community.
a. By implementing rhetorical ideas, someone can accomplish the purpose of their
writing within a specific discourse community because it involves understanding
and specific strategies.

2. Locate, critically evaluate, synthesize, and integrate multiple perspectives from a variety
of sources.
a. We should find relevant sources, and then critically evaluate them. Next is
combining information from various sources to create a solid understanding or
argument. Last is integrating the multiple perspectives from the various sources.

3. Engage in research and writing as recursive and inquiry-based processes, participating

in the communal and conversational nature of academic discourses
a. Engaging in research and writing as recursive and question-driven processes
helps gather and seek more than present information. Academic work is not done
in solitude, so we would participate in the communal and conversational nature of
academic discourses.

4. Develop strategies for generating, drafting, revising, and editing texts based on feedback
and reflection
a. Developing based on feedback and reflection involves a structured approach
that’ll help have continuous improvement in generating, drafting, revising, and
editing texts.

5. Reflect on knowledge and skills developed in this and other courses and potential
transfer to future contexts
a. By reflecting on what we learned and the development of certain skills in this and
in other courses, we can apply it to various contexts and prepare for future
careers.

6. Students will develop strategies for composing multimodal texts

a. Developing strategies for creating multimodal texts will make it so that students
can create viable and engaging multimodal texts that convey their ideas in
diverse and dynamic ways.

7. Recognize and critique the relationship among language, knowledge and power
a. To recognize the relationships among language means you can critique how the
language is used to build knowledge and have power, and understand how the
dynamics affect a certain community.
Task 2

Strengths:

● Reflect on knowledge and skills developed in this and other courses and potential
transfer to future contexts
○ I learned this from my previous communication teacher. She came up with
different scenarios that we would possibly have in the future and she had us
apply communication concepts and communication skills. Now, I apply my
knowledge and skills to the interactions I have now. It helped shape the path to
my future career.

● Engage in research and writing as recursive and inquiry-based processes, participating

in the communal and conversational nature of academic discourses
○ In the english class I took when I was a senior in high school, there was a lot of
writing and questions we had to do and discourse. I found myself repeating the
process of researching and writing, and the teacher's or other classmates'
questions. I learned to always repeat my research and writing process because
of this. It has helped in past recent essays as encourages me to discover more
rather than just sticking with what I had.

Areas of Improvements:

● Apply rhetorical concepts to achieve writing goals within a given discourse community.
○ When it comes to applying rhetorical concepts, the most I have trouble with is
appealing to credibility and authority. I could improve this by establishing
common ground with the audience using the most credible and reliable sources
and properly citing them. Knowing when to speak about personal experiences on
a specific topic could also help.

● Students will develop strategies for composing multimodal texts

○ I don’t usually do multimodal texts, so it’s not my biggest strength. I’ll target for
improvement by balancing the use of different modes so that I can learn about
multiple rather than overusing them. Receiving feedback would help too as I can
take the advice and apply it to my learning.
Task 3

My way of speaking with my family and friends is informal and frivolous. I don’t use
appropriate grammar or words around them. To other people, this way of communicating can be
seen as rude and uneducated, but I view it as natural and comforting. Growing up, Spanish was
all that was spoken to me at home. There are a lot of casual ways of speaking and terms in
Spanish and since I was surrounded by my parents, friends extended family, and other Latinos,
this informal way of talking became my primary way of speaking. By visiting my mom’s home
country, I felt at home because everyone in that part of town communicated the same way I did.
From this point of view, it looks like everyone is good friends and family, that is the part I value
the most. How the majority of the Latino community understands this way of communication and
how close-knit everyone is even if they’re strangers. While this community did play a big role in
shaping my primary language, there was also another one. As a kid, I went to church a lot. All
the families were close to each other and spoke in a trusting way as well. It was another close-
knit community that I could speak informally with. It helped develop my casual way of speaking
in english. It meant plenty to me as I could speak the same way I did in Spanish and I could be
understood by them. Within these communities, I didn’t have to strain myself and that’s what
matters to me.

My relationship with writing has always been both negative and positive. Positive
because it was an outlet for me to express myself and negative because I’ve never been
confident about works I’ve written. I loved writing ever since I was a kid, I only started hating it
when I had to write for assignments due to struggling with how to go about it. Nonetheless, I still
find myself enjoying writing despite it being an assignment. When I’m writing, rather than feeling
apathetic, I feel all different types of emotions. To me, it’s important that I express my emotions
through writing because I’ve always had trouble expressing my feelings through verbal
communication. Even with my love-hate relationship with my writing, my feelings toward it are
always positive in the end. I know that with writing, I can convey important messages to others,
improve my writing skills, and be more confident about putting my work out there. The writing
that has always felt effortless to me is creative writing. I spent most of my free time writing
poetry or an ongoing novel. It has always been effortless for me because of the lack of rules, it's
just you and your imagination. It is also a form of artistic expression, ideal for me to
communicate my ideas, emotions, and experiences. While it is my favorite type of writing, I want
to learn more about how to write important topics in essays. Developing other skills for writing
would make me a better writer overall and possibly wash out my negative feelings about writing.

The first person to impact the way I wrote was my sixth-grade Language Arts teacher.
She taught us several synonyms and antonyms to different words and how to use descriptive
words in our writing, along with how to use words to sound persuasive. This greatly impacted
my style of writing as I started to integrate bigger words and I became aware of the different
tones in writing. It guided me to know what words were appropriate for the type of paper I was
supposed to be writing. Since I was taught that, I always look for alternative words and think
about the way I use words, knowing that the usage of every word shapes my novel or essay.
The second person that influenced my writing was my eleventh-grade English teacher. She
talked about the importance of the structure in our own writing. By this point, I knew how to
create a plot for a story and create an argument in an essay, but it wasn’t very in-depth. She
had us analyze the structures of other works of literature, which encouraged me to analyze my
own writing. When writing, I think about the structure of my writing and if it’s the appropriate
structure. It saves me the trouble of having to rewrite every single sentence. Teaching us about
how to pace our writing was valuable as when I’m revising, I make sure the pacing makes sense
and I’m not talking about something too soon. All of these skills have shaped my writing to the
way it is now.